Review: ‘T.R. Baskin’

T.R. Baskin makes a few good comedy-comments on modern urban existence, but these are bits of rare jewelry lost on a vast beach of strung-out, erratic storytelling. Candice Bergen is featured in title role of a rural girl who is, or is not, worth caring about in the big city. Told in flashback, Peter Hyams' debut production is handsomely mounted, but his screenplay is sterile, superficial and inconsistent. Peter Boyle is an out-of-towner who called Bergen for sex, but instead suffers through her equivocal talk-therapy.

T.R. Baskin makes a few good comedy-comments on modern urban existence, but these are bits of rare jewelry lost on a vast beach of strung-out, erratic storytelling. Candice Bergen is featured in title role of a rural girl who is, or is not, worth caring about in the big city. Told in flashback, Peter Hyams’ debut production is handsomely mounted, but his screenplay is sterile, superficial and inconsistent. Peter Boyle is an out-of-towner who called Bergen for sex, but instead suffers through her equivocal talk-therapy.

Bergen’s screen presence is too sophisticated for the role, and both her acting, direction and dialog result in confusion. One moment she is to be pitied; the next she is fouling up her own chances with people. Boyle, whose contribution is little more than a foil, tries to get some depth into the role of a square salesman.

James Caan, looking more mature, is another professional victim, as a divorced man who ends a perfect night with Bergen by offering her some money. He isn’t the only one who isn’t sure what she is.